Michael J. Fox worried that his cameo on an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm would get him canceled, or worse.
In a recent interview with Esquire editor in chief Michael Sebastian, the Back to the Future actor shared what it was like for him to shoot the hit HBO series with star Larry David.
Sebastian recalled the 2011 episode, in which Fox plays David’s upstairs neighbor.
“[David] accuses you of using your Parkinson’s to basically get sympathy and so on,” Sebastian explained, according to People magazine.
“And ruin his life,” Fox added.
When he asked Fox why he agreed on that story line, the actor replied, “Oh, because it’s hilarious.”
“Larry called me up and said he had this idea, and I said, ‘No, they’ll crucify us. They’re gonna kill us if we do this.’ I said that,” Fox explained. “And he said, ‘Oh, OK, well.’ I said, ‘No, that’s not a problem. That recommends it to me.’ And it was just a great time.”
The Season 8 episode has the actor playing a version of himself, and David accuses him of stomping around upstairs. Fox then explains that he has painful foot cramps due to Parkinson’s disease and that he needs to wear stiff boots.
While he initially wondered about the audience reaction, Fox said that “people really loved it.”
“It was a big breakthrough, again in this Parkinson’s point of view, bringing people into our way of thinking, which was, we’re people in society, and we have to reach out for what we need, and we have to express ourselves,” Fox explained.
The Canada-born actor was diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson’s disease in 1991, when he was 29 years old. While filming the movie Doc Hollywood, he noticed a tremor in his pinky finger, according to The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. In 1998, he revealed his diagnosis to the public and launched his foundation in 2000.